Google Company Analysis

Google is a tech-based company that offers services and products to organize information. The company focuses on organizing the world’s information and making it easily accessible and useful. Google rides on the idea that “work should be challenging, but the challenge needs to be fun.” This makes its culture different from that of other corporate America. Some of Google’s competitors include Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and business and career social sites within its website segments. Besides, the company also competes with other technology giants such as software company PTC, Oracle, Compuware, EMC, F5 networks, and Intel on the other revenue segments. Therefore, despite some challenges and competition faced by organizations outside the United States, such as China, the company’s overall strength, which results from its global position and reputation, provides it with an unprecedented advantage. Google has been able to diversify its products and services into various sectors since its inception, from word processing programs to mapping software, media sites such as YouTube, and email clients. Thus, the company currently has a commanding stake in the technology industry and continues to identify creative ways to defend the position while at the same time adapting to the rapidly changing technological industry.

Operations Management Concepts:

Operations Management at Google Company entails various management objectives and teams. However, there are four critical concepts that address the activities that anchor the company’s success. For instance, the product and services design is a primary component of Google’s product design process. Other essential concepts include quality management, which assists in enhancing the consistency of the organization’s products and services, as well as human resources and job design. Addressing these concepts is the driver that enables Google to maintain an efficient and effective operation that realizes its profitability objectives.

Product and Service Design – goods and services design at Google involves various teams that deal with different products produced by the company. The design operations management concept is applied by critical market research and forecasting of trends. The company, for instance, utilizes users’ future expectations in the identification and development of cutting-edge applications and software for both mobile and desktop users.

Effective product and service design incorporates the elements and preferences of customers within the production process with the particular aim of identifying products and services that can maximize profits and whose production expenses do not involve considerable costs. The design builds upon customers’ choice patterns from various market segments. However, the design of products and services is crucial when planning to produce new services or products. A successful design must incorporate multiple principles; for instance, the final product or service should translate into what the customer wants, as well as convert service and product specifications into process design, which contains various processes such as ideas for improvement, motivation, forecasting, and organizational capabilities. The technological industry in which Google is a significant player is characterized by rapid demographic and economic changes, a competitive market environment, and technological changes. These present Google with opportunities as well as challenges that it must take into consideration when planning the design of its products and services.

Process and Capacity Design – this operations management concept does not significantly influence software and web-based products since Google is able to maintain the same number of staff in the case of an upsurge in demand for these products. This is made possible by the fact that the company is able to distribute software and web-based products easily through the Internet platform without any considerable influence on the capacity of the workforce. However, Google Company addresses capacity design through the standardized conventional process involved in the development of software and applications. The concept of capacity and process design has an even more significant influence on products such as Chromecast and Nexus. The concept is applied through contract manufacturing; for instance, although the company develops its Nexus smartphones, it usually outsources its production to original equipment manufacturers, who decide on the products’ process and capacity design.

Quality Management – the technological industry continues to experience unprecedented competition, which makes each player strive to produce more innovative services and products for its clients. Google Company believes in the potential of quality management to invigorate its processes, products, and administrative innovation. The quality management concepts in Google’s operations management provide it with new avenues for improving services and products. It puts the organization on the path to continuous improvement of its products and service offerings. As a concept of operations management at Google, the organization consistently checks and commits to improving its service and product qualities. Thus, the organization focuses on ensuring that its products and services are standard and meet the requirements of its clients. Therefore, to ensure quality standards are met, Google actively tests, debugs, and innovates new products. It also involves users to ensure that the final product meets their needs. Through debugging and iterative testing, Google can reduce the number of errors in the final products they release to their customers. Besides, the company has an elaborate system that provides its clients with an avenue for reporting complaints, reviews, and error reports for purposes of improving quality.

Layout Design and Strategy – According to the available literature, facility layout and design play a critical role in operations management in terms of enhancing the maximum efficiency of production processes and meeting the employees’ needs. According to the available literature, the major objective of a facility’s layout design in operations management is to enhance the smooth flow of materials, work, and information across the system. The concept of layout design and strategy is applicable at Google and is manifested in the manner in which the company designs its facilities and workflows. Google is primarily popular due to its innovativeness and creative work environment. The company thus integrates efficient workflows with innovative ideas to develop its software and web-based products. For instance, the Googleplex in California reflects the company’s recognition of the significance of smooth work and process flow.

These four critical concepts are important in enhancing Google’s productivity by addressing the business activities that determine the success of the organization. Layout design and strategy, process and capacity design, product and service design, and quality management assist the organization in eliminating drag. According to the available evidence, organizational drag is responsible for the loss of nearly 25% of productive power among average companies. These results are primarily from processes that contribute to time wastage, thus dragging activities and services from being completed. Seasoned management gurus opine that this often features growing companies, which often replace judgment with processes. An article in the Harvard Business Review indicated that adopting the mentioned operational management concepts is likely to inspire employees and make them nearly 125% more productive. This is perhaps the reason behind Google’s range of operational management activities that focus on enhancing work and process flow while enhancing the quality and customer feel of its products and services.

Besides, ensuring that these concepts are functional is a recipe for substantive positive influence on the employees’ performance and the organization’s capability. These concepts play a critical role in Google’s success because they recognize the fundamental changes and differences in Google’s industry, where changes are continuous and thus do not require rigidity in planning. The concepts align with the reality in the technological industry, which needs an evolution of plans, agility, and flexibility to make more successful products. Thus, Google has built the agile design into its fiber and psyche with the concepts enabling it not to make long-term detailed plans. Further, the concepts are responsible for Google’s dramatic change in business practice and culture. Previously, it was only a few small companies that used to be nimble. Large corporations highly value planning and a long-term view.

Evaluation Of Operations Concerns In Global Markets:

There are some reasons that make a company opt for an international market. One of the primary reasons is the countless opportunities that characterize the international marketplace. However, despite the existence of a significant market for an organization’s products and services, there still lies a substantive number of concerns that a company must consider before going global. One of the issues is management, which has been a critical challenge for time immemorial. Multinational organizations often stumble and sometimes fail to adapt. In fact, a report released by McKinsey on the “Globalization penalty” showed that global companies that were performing at the peak consistently scored lower than firms that focused solely on the local market. This, therefore, introduces the existence of challenges and concerns that organizations are likely to face when they focus on the international market.

However, the available evidence indicates that no single business model exists that can fit all situations and realities that characterize rapid growth across emerging economies. It is in part due to challenges and opportunities that vary across industries depending on the business model selected by a company. Besides, all organizations have different histories. Despite the fact that organizations often respond in various ways to new challenges and opportunities in the international business environment, McKinsey’s report shows four critical concerns: people, strategy, risk, and cost management, which are the primary issues faced by firms. The significance of these concerns varies across industries and individual firms in terms of their history, operating model, and global footprint. Therefore, it is necessary for individual firms to ensure that they take stock of their status about these concerns as a starting point to enable them to boost their performance on the global scale.

As a global player, Google’s major challenge in the international business environment is staying ahead of regulators. The activities that Google has undertaken across the world involve contact with regulatory authorities of different countries and governmental institutions, and the mode of contact can, at times, get the company into trouble when due process is not followed. However, despite the fact that regulations are a major challenge that Google faces, there is no doubt that within the European market, the company faces privacy-related challenges. Europe has a different perspective when it comes to internet security and privacy compared to other countries across the globe.

Evaluation Of Corporate Social Responsibility Issues With Regard To Quality And Industry Standards:

The changes experienced within the business environment present organizations with numerous new sociocultural and environmental challenges that largely determine whether they can install, maintain, and protect their businesses while also being able to achieve sustainable growth that benefits all stakeholders. This led to the inception of the CSR concept, which has gained unprecedented attention across the industry. Authors, management experts, consultants, and other players have attempted to elaborate on various concepts of CSR with the aim of illustrating the role of business organizations within society.

Across the globe, business organizations are promoting disclosure of non-financial information and transparency as a critical concept for growth and sustainability agenda. Corporate social responsibility initiated changes in reporting and its implications for the evaluation of business viability and growth potential. The new system provides a language, templates, and standardized terms, which brings transparency, comparability, and consistency to reporting. Further, since this is a shared resource among different business organizations, it can introduce critical improvements in the manner in which businesses support and impact the communities where they do business.

According to the available research evidence, Google Company is doing satisfactory CSR activities. It is evident that Google undertakes various policies and programs aimed at addressing all stakeholders’ interests. Through its philosophy, “focus on the user and all else will follow,” the company has been producing useful services and products that drive profitability and growth, thus impacting all stakeholders. Besides, Google’s philosophy that anyone can make money without necessarily being evil forms the foundation and driver for the organization’s CSR activities, which have far-reaching impacts.